Mao Zedong and Peng Dehuai were both born within a few kilometres of each other in rural Xiangtan, one in Shaoshan village in 1893, the other in nearby Wushi in 1898; one went on to found the People’s Republic, the other was purged by him for criticising it.
毛泽东与彭德怀,出生地相距不过数公里,同属湘潭乡野之间;一位一八九三年生于韶山,另一位一八九八年生于附近的乌石;前者后来缔造了新中国,后者却因批评其政策而遭其清洗。
Peng, by then a Politburo member and defence minister, wrote Mao a private letter at the 1959 Lushan Conference criticising the excesses of the Great Leap Forward; Mao had the letter circulated to the full conference instead, and Peng was denounced as leader of an anti-Party clique and stripped of his posts.
彭德怀当时已是政治局委员兼国防部长,他于一九五九年庐山会议期间,曾写下一封私人信件,批评”大跃进”运动中出现的过激做法;毛泽东却将这封信印发给全体与会者,彭德怀随即被打成”反党集团”头目,撤销一切职务。
He was further persecuted during the Cultural Revolution, held under repeated interrogation and physical abuse, and died in 1974 without medical treatment for the cancer that killed him; the Communist Party posthumously rehabilitated him in 1978, two years after Mao’s own death.
文化大革命期间,他遭受了更为严酷的迫害,屡遭批斗与人身摧残,一九七四年因患癌症、未获及时医治而离世;直至一九七八年,即毛泽东逝世两年之后,中国共产党才为他恢复名誉。
A Village of a Few Thousand, Visited by Twenty Million a Year
一座仅有数千人的村庄,年接待游客两千万
According to CGTN’s own reporting on Shaoshan’s tourism industry, the village now receives more than 20 million visitors a year, a figure roughly 170 times its own resident population, to see Mao’s former residence, the bronze statue square built in his honour, and the Water-Dripping Cave where he is said to have studied as a young man.
据央视国际频道CGTN关于韶山旅游业的报道,这座村庄如今每年接待游客逾二千万人次,数量约为其常住人口的一百七十倍,人们纷纷前来参观毛泽东故居、为纪念他而建的铜像广场,以及相传他青年时期曾在此读书的滴水洞。
Peng Dehuai’s own former residence and memorial hall stand in Wushi town, a short drive from Shaoshan, restored from the mud-brick farmhouse where he grew up and now holding a collection of his personal effects and wartime memorabilia; it draws a fraction of Shaoshan’s crowds, though it remains part of the same officially designated red-tourism route through Xiangtan.
彭德怀故居与纪念馆坐落于距韶山不远的乌石镇,依他儿时居住的土砖房修复而成,馆内陈列着他的部分遗物与戎马生涯相关文物;尽管前来参观的游客数量远不及韶山,这里同样是湘潭红色旅游线路的组成部分。
Xiangtan also produced the painter Qi Baishi, born in 1864 in a village not far from either man’s birthplace, whose ink paintings of shrimp and everyday rural life now sell for tens of millions of yuan at auction, a rather different afterlife than either of his more politically consequential fellow townsmen.
湘潭还走出了画家齐白石,他生于一八六四年,出生地距离前两位人物的故乡也相去不远;他笔下的虾与乡村日常生活题材水墨画,如今在拍卖会上动辄拍出数千万元人民币的高价,与另外两位同乡截然不同的政治命运,形成了鲜明对照的另一种身后境遇。
An Industrial City that Outearns Most of Its Neighbours
一座人均产值超越多数邻近城市的工业之城
According to the city’s own 2024 economic communiqué, Xiangtan’s GDP reached ¥295.7 billion that year, up 5.7 percent, with per capita output at ¥109,663, among the higher figures recorded across Hunan’s prefectures; the permanent population stood at 2.6918 million, down slightly on the year before.
据该市自身发布的二零二四年经济统计公报显示,当年湘潭市GDP达二千九百五十七点零六亿元,同比增长百分之五点七,人均产值为十万九千六百六十三元,在湖南各地州市中位居前列;常住人口为二百六十九点一八万人,较上年略有下降。
That output rests heavily on heavy industry inherited from the state’s first and second Five-Year Plans, when Xiangtan was designated a key industrial base; Xiangtan Iron and Steel Group and Xiangtan Electric Manufacturing Corporation, both dating from that era, still anchor much of the local economy, alongside newer entrants such as Geely’s local car plant and the glass and materials manufacturer Lens Technology.
这一经济产出,很大程度上仍依赖于国家”一五””二五”计划时期布局的重工业基础,彼时湘潭被列为国家重点工业基地;湘潭钢铁集团与湘潭电机集团,均创立于那一时期,至今仍是当地经济的重要支柱,此外还有吉利汽车湘潭工厂、蓝思科技等后来落户的新兴企业。
Getting to Xiangtan means a journey of around 30 minutes from Changsha Huanghua International Airport, or a short high-speed rail connection linking the two cities as part of the wider Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban cluster.
前往湘潭,自长沙黄花国际机场出发,车程约三十分钟;也可乘坐高铁,作为长株潭城市群一体化交通网络的一部分,两市之间连接便捷。
Both men’s former homes now sit on the same tourist itinerary through the Xiangtan countryside, a few kilometres and one purge apart.
如今,这两位故人的旧居,都被纳入了同一条穿越湘潭乡间的旅游路线之中——两地相距不过数公里,而两人的命运,却相隔了一场政治清洗。
